The Lord Goes Before Me.

I dropped Theo off for his second day of school this morning. He was buzzing. Ran in, barely looked back at me.

A few of the other children were not fine at all.

One little boy had both arms around his mum's leg and would not let go. She was crouched down at his level, saying all the things you say.

Don't worry. You're going to have a lovely day. I'll be back to get you before you know it.

And you could see exactly what he wanted. He didn't want reassurance from the gate.

He wanted her to come in with him.

To walk through that door, sit down next to him, and go through the whole strange new day at his side.

She couldn't. That isn't how school works. All she could do was hand him over and trust.

I've prayed like that little boy.

There is something hard coming, or something with an outcome I can't see. Fear rises and all I want is God in the room with me.

Not out there somewhere, cheering me on from a distance. In it.

And if I'm honest, there are days when it feels like He walks me to the gate, says a few kind things, and goes.

I'm not the first person to feel that.

There is a whole nation in Deuteronomy standing at the edge of a land they have never seen. Everything ahead of them is unknown. And Moses, who has led them every step for forty years, is telling them he isn't coming in.

He is the one at the gate. He can't go in with them, and he knows it.

So listen to what he says instead.

"The Lord himself is who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you nor forsake you."

Not one promise. Two.

He will be with you, so you are not walking in alone.

And He goes before you, which is the thing that little boy at the gate could never have had. God isn't waving you through a door and hoping it goes well.

He has already been in that room. He knows what is waiting in there. He was there first.

So whatever you are walking toward today, the appointment, the conversation, the thing you have been dreading since Sunday night, you are not being dropped off.

You are being walked in.

He is beside you, and He is already inside.